starting prices for new species

Arachnosquire

Old Timer

Joined

Aug 7, 2002

Messages

62

for those hobbyists that have been around for a number of years,how much did the popular and some what common species first cost when they first hit the market?like species that everyone knows about and has.where the prices outrageous compared to how they are now?
just wondering
Tom

Priestess of Pulchra-tude

Old Timer

Joined

Oct 12, 2002

Messages

903

I paid $45 for my first A. geniculata sling and thought I got a bargain. But they were going for $15 apiece a year later, owing to the fact they reproduce even faster than bunny rabbits (an eggsac may contain 2000+, reportedly). Even worse, I paid $150 for my first N. coloratovillosus . . . which turned out to be a male. Within a year or two, they were down to $30 or so, and they're less than that now most places. Supply and demand in action!

Arachnoemperor

Not to the best of my memory. Pretty much everything cost about $10-$15 back in the early 80s because it was all wild caught. I got a juvenile female B. smithi for about $12 in 1982 or so. Prior to CITES, I can't even recall seeing a Chilean rose - why would anyone bother? If you could import a smithi for the same cost as a rose hair, not much point. Zebras were around and about $10-$15, a brown but more spectacular spider like a P. cancerides was about $10. I don't recall seeing many pinktoes until the late 80s but they were never more than about $20-$25 even then. Most of the common species we have today only became common on the market because CITES destroyed a lot of the staples for selling as inexpensive Ts.

After CITES, the next time I saw a smithi in a shop was about 1991 and they wanted $180, my jaw dropped.

The massive variety and price craziness didn't start until around the mid 90s when captive breeding became common place and newly imported species became speculative commodities. The A. geniculata was a truly spectacular find, but it also bred readily in captivity and produced upwards of a thousand slings per sac, not so great for the people who bought in early. Conversely T. blondi has been around forever but due to difficulties in rearing them, their fast growth which requires a constant supply of males to keep the slings coming, and relatively small egg sacs the price remains high.